Category Archives: Dogs & Other Animals

Teaching Assistants

Dogs & Other Animals, Thoughts On Life,

I am currently teaching a class in Therapy Dog Training at our local vocational and adult education school one evening a week. It is so much fun! Above are my co-assistants. Shelby, on the left, accompanies me to every class. She is extremely reliable. The only reason I don’t say 100% reliable is because no one is perfect. My other sheltie Nikki helped this week too. Shelby demonstrates the exercises and both girls fill the role of “the neutral dog” when we work on distractions.

Our class is held in the school’s animal lab. That’s why there is a bunny in the background. There are lots is small animals: rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, lizards, fish, turtles, and an assortment of birds. They provide quite the distraction for the “student dogs” in class. Shelby and Nikki are not impressed by the menagerie.

The dogs taking this class are a huge golden retriever, a Norwegian elkhound, and a pit bull. All are under three years old so, it is an exciting time. They are all great but I’ve wanted a pit bull for a few years so, I can’t get enough of petting his big head and scratching his ears.

This is a labor of love. When the school asked how much I wanted to make, I said “I don’t care, I would do it for free”. I believe that it’s important to get more dog and handler teams available to visit nursing homes and other care facilities. I know if I lived in one, I would want someone to come visit me with their dog. I even had one lady who thought I was bringing her dogs in to visit her! That is a great reward.

A Holiday Dinner

Cooking, Dogs & Other Animals, ,

In our family, Valentines Day is a family affair. My husband started the tradition because he wanted to do something special for all the women in the family and it became a couples event. There is much planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, and baking that takes place.

We get out the good dishes. There are decorations, and flowers.

And of course there is cake made from scratch! This one was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

The menu was:

Homemade potato vegetable soup with heavy cream

Marinated salad with cucumber, olive, onion and other delights

Flank or tuna steak from the grill with reduced mango sauce

Fettuccine

Asiago Cheese Bread

Carrot Cake

Occasionally a guest joins our family to partake of the fun. Sadly, this year was an adults only event since my nieces were sick. We didn’t get to see them in their matching tights with hearts on them. We did have three guests of the canine persuasion in addition to our own so it was still an exciting event.

My Valentines

Dogs & Other Animals,

May you be so blessed as to have Valentines as wonderful as these!I am never alone and I am always loved.

I have a companion for every activity. Baxter the lab-rott mix is always ready for some frisbeeing or hiking. Cassius the greyhound is ready to play with toys, or for snuggling, your choice. Zeke on the bottom right is up for running, hiking, and anything that involves spending time with me. The two sheltie girls always accompany me on nursing home visits. Shelby with the bandanna also hikes with me and helps me teach a class at the vocational school. Shelby is my right hand pup. I can count on her to do a good job no matter what it is.

With these pups as part of my family, how could I not say…Life is good!

The Handsomeness!

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

This dog came up on my Facebook memories from last year when he was up for adoption. I wonder where this dog is and what he’s doing? I miss him.

Now lest you think that I missed out because of a mad rush of adopters applying, not so. I have never met this dog and never attempted to. He’s just one of the many dogs that shows up every day on my Facebook feed and I fall in love with. Does anyone else do this?

I know my daughter does. She comes by it honestly. She gets it from her momma. About once every couple of weeks she texts me something along the lines of “I just want all the dogs”. I know how she feels.

So, to the gorgeous guy pictured above, I hope you are happy, healthy, and well-loved.

Playing Fair

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, ,

Hey look, it’s Bat Dog! I think Cassius looks like a bat with his ears standing up and his fangs showing.

He was trying to stay warm in our subzero temperatures last week. Cassius doesn’t generally like to wear clothes but it was so cold that he tolerated a sweater.

Our dogs really are our kids. They even wear hand me downs. The sweater Cassius is wearing belonged to our greyhound Phoebe who has been gone for a couple of years now.

The sweater still has a pink heart and Phoebe’s name embroidered on it. I did remove the white satin bow before I put it on Cassius. But I couldn’t bear to remove the pink heart. I did promise Cassius that I would add another heart in red with his name on it.

That seems like playing fair to me!

Be Careful What You Wish For

Dogs & Other Animals,

Apparently Zekie was worried that he might lose his status as our problem child. He hasn’t been able to chew himself out of his “armored” crate, see below, so he tried a different tactic.

While he was incarcerated in his crate, for maybe two hours, he took his collar off and chewed it into 6 or 7 pieces. The piece above is the only one I saved because it has his tags on it. Maybe he was trying to say “you’re not the boss of me” by getting rid of the collar.

He also was extremely reactive to other dogs on our walk over the weekend. I’ve always said I don’t like dogs that are too easy. Be careful what you wish for.

Smiles All Around!

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

It’s a happy day. A friend contacted me about finding a home for this dog that an acquaintance of hers cannot keep. I do shetland sheepdog rescue. This is a red merle border collie. She is a 2 1/2 year old, spayed little girl.

Since the couple got her, the wife’s health has taken an unfortunate turn and the husband is working long hours now. This pup is loved but needs and deserves more than the family is able to give her with current circumstances.

I had a number of suggestions. Find a neighbor to walk the dog. Or contact a training club or 4- H group about adoption. Post a flyer at the vet office. Anyone who is there takes care of their dogs. Our rescue could do a courtesy post.

But look at that face! What would happen to her? I worry about these things. I spend time sitting around pondering options. You might say I become obsessed. It is in the forefront of my mind for hours. When I am presented with situations like this, my brain takes responsibility. I have to exhaust all avenues open to me to fix the situation. Dogs well-being, if not their lives, depend on it. I do not take this lightly.

I was copied on a post of someone who was looking for a sheltie. Or possibly a small collie. We don’t have many shelties in rescue right now. I thought, hey, they’re willing to consider a sheltie or collie, they don’t really have their heart set on a specific breed. A border collie is a herding breed. Maybe they would be interested in this dog. After hearing more about this person, I am confident they would provide a very good home.

So, long story short. They are going to meet this little border collie girl on Saturday and probably will adopt her. Sometimes things just fall into place. This appears to be one of those times. Smiles all around!

Separation Anxiety and Retraining, Part II

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

In addition to general obedience training to help with control issues and being in charge, I have also done what I call situational training to help reduce the separation anxiety.

Things like leaving Zeke, and the dogs on each side of him, in their crates while I am home. This is never much of a problem. Zeke is fine in his crate when I am home. Then I picked up my keys and put them down. Then walked to the door and back. And opened and closed the door. Then went out on the porch and back inside. Several times. On to opening and closing the car door and back inside. Driving up the street to drop off the recycling and back home. (No, they don’t have curbside recycling out here.) Then I drove into town to buy dog food and back, etc.

The ideal is to do this slowly over days or weeks, until the dog does not react. I had to speed this cycle up over a long weekend because, hey, I have this thing called a job. My boss was quite understanding. There were a few days I had to take extra time off to deal with Zeke and my leave slips were granted, no problem. Once I threatened to bring Zeke with me for a meeting I couldn’t miss. When I showed up without him, several people were disappointed because they wanted to watch him in their offices. And all coworkers I mentioned my trials with Zeke to were sympathetic and supportive. One even thanked me for doing rescue work and adopting and dealing with Zekie. It goes without saying, my coworkers are awesome! And their kind words were a balm when I really needed it.

Since I had to do a shortened version of training Zeke to my leaving and coming back, my results were less than stellar too. Although there was some improvement. The rate and intensity with which he chewed and destroyed crates was lessened. The mania he exhibited was more subdued. Whenever I returned from anywhere, I did not let Zeke or any of the dogs out of their crates until he was calmed down. As calm as a Zekie gets.

Some other things I did that I think were of minor help follow. I give him Cannabidiol oil shortly before leaving, along with a couple of herbal homeopathic chews. I make sure there is a nylabone or peanut butter stuffed Kong in his crate. I do not rush to greet Zeke or free him from the crate immediately upon arriving home. I want my comings and goings to be no big deal.

What really returned our lives to being somewhat normal though, is finding an impervious crate. We ended up with an Impact brand crate. While an investment, it has been a lifesaver. Literally. All of the retraining was not wasted though. All of these steps helped to make Zeke a calmer, happier dog with less reaction when we do go away. He still reacts, but not to the same degree.

I hope that someone is able to find some useful information and things to apply to their own dog from these articles. And if it prevents someone else from doing things that result in separation anxiety, even better!

Separation Anxiety and Retraining, Part I

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Zeke has separation anxiety. One of the things I have undertaken as part of his treatment to manage this is retraining.

When people contact me, via our dog rescue (Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue) to ask for advice on a multitude of things, I almost always advise obedience training. This helps with so many issues. People tell me that their dog’s lack of obedience is not the thing they are unhappy with. Training your dog for sits, downs, and stays is not exactly the point.

The point is that you are working with your dog and teaching him that you are a team, and you are the leader of that team. He learns that he should listen to you. You call the shots. This carries over to so much more than just the sits and stays. Dogs are creatures of habit. Listening to you and watching for cues become a way of life. This in itself should result in a calmer dog. It is stressful being the leader. Take that stress away from your dog. It was time for me to practice what I preach and start training.

Taking an obedience class together is a good option but not strictly necessary. For Zeke, I chose to train him myself. We have multiple dogs and regularly encounter multiple dogs so I didn’t need the group setting that this socialization can provide.

Because Zeke’s training was mostly to deal with separation anxiety, I began making him earn everything, including attention and affection. Zeke was so attached to me that he could not bear to be away from me. Part of this started because I needed to know where he was at all times to know if he was getting into trouble. Often, yes, he was. Then it became cute, Zeke had to be near me all the time. It was gratifying that he followed me around the house and jumped up to stare in my eyes and lick my face. And it was comforting when he laid on me for a nap.

Shame on me! These things were comforting to him too. So much so that Zeke became stressed when I wasn’t nearby. My husband said to me on more than one occasion, he’s sitting on you so he knows where you’re at and you can’t get away. It wasn’t too long of a trip from there to full blown separation anxiety. Rather than cracking down on his neediness, I gave him attention. I released the monster.

Now I think Zeke did have issues with this before I got him because he was already missing two fangs, probably from crate chewing. But he could be contained, and he crated well when he came to our house from the shelter. If I had known what I was dealing with things might have gone differently. Then again, maybe not. I have never dealt with anything like this before and we have fostered over 50 dogs in the past 15 years.

So the training began. I took a cue from Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer. He always talks about calm assertive energy from the human and sometimes from another calm dog. So I had Shelby, my certified therapy dog, with us during all of our training sessions. Shelby exudes confidence. Our sessions took the form of walks with stops along the way for obedience work.

We worked on walking on a loose leash. Zeke was on a choker collar. I like to train new dogs with a choker because the sound of the chain becomes a cue for the dog. Occasionally we would stop and I would ask the dogs to sit or perform some other command. After they successfully did each task they would get a treat. (I just used small pieces of kibble so as not to add a lot of calories and I could treat often.) At first I gave a treat after every obeyed command. Training science says that once a task is learned, random treating, rather than every time produces better results. I don’t understand this but who am I to argue with science. I can see how not treating every time would be helpful for when you don’t have treats. So I started asking for multiple behaviors before giving the treat. And a few times I didn’t give any. I do always give praise in some form for each task done.

Shelby thought this was all great fun. Zeke was confused. In fact, the first night we attempted this, Zeke’s behavior was terrible! But I persisted. The next night was better. Both dogs began to look forward to our special time together. Zeke became easier to walk. He started paying more attention in case I gave a command with an opportunity to earn a treat. I know dogs can learn from each other. I have seen it many times. My decision to include Shelby was I think, a good one. I could tell when I asked Zeke to do something that made him nervous, such as a stay where I walked about 15 feet away while the dogs were in a sit-stay. Once I got farther away than Zeke was comfortable with, he whipped he head around to see what Shelby was doing, without breaking his stay. He saw Shelby still sitting there, smiling happily. I could just see Zeke’s mind processing this information. “Oh, Shelby’s not upset and she’s still sitting. It must be ok, I think that’s what I’m supposed to do too.”

Over time we’ve worked on various commands: watch me, sit, down, stay, give paw, wait. We worked on these for varying and increasing lengths of time. And Zeke definitely got better at the commands. In fact, he is quite good at them. I think I saw Zeke’s behavior improve in regards to the separation anxiety too. Since it was so severe, I did pursue getting him the mega crate from my previous post but I have hope that, in time, he will be a mostly normal dog.

We retrained on many other things too but those will have to be shared in the next post. So until next time…

Snow Path

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, ,

We awoke to much new snow this morning. Somewhere between 10-12 inches. My husband ran the snowblower to clear the driveway and sidewalks, then shoveled snow off the porch roofs.

I refilled the bird feeder and shoveled a path for the dogs to go outside.

The snow was deep on poor little Nikki and she is twelve years old. She’s a game little girl though and even went before I shoveled a path. But she prefers to sleep on the dog bed.

Even the taller dogs appreciate the path. They appreciated the snow too. I guess novelty is good amusement.